Essence of Her
by Alyson Grant
Summary: You delude yourself into thinking that it’s okay. It’s not. You do what’s wrong because it seems like the easier choice to make then what’s right. Deep down you know it’s not. Your actions affect everyone around you.
1. Jude

Essence of Her

by

Alyson Grant

**Jude**

"You might think that what you did has nothing to do with me  
but father it has everything to do with me."

"When you cheated on Mom you didn't just hurt her. You hurt all of us. And that…sucks. Why did you do it? Why did you hurt her like that? Why couldn't you just stick with the counseling sessions or get extra therapy? Sex with Yvette doesn't count."

She paused.

"You aren't the person I thought you were. That's why I can barely look at you. You think the way I'm acting is strange but I think the way you acted was worse. It's _so_ much worse. I'm not the disappointment here."

"**You are."**


	2. Sadie

Essence of Her

By

Alyson Grant

**Sadie**

"It hurt so much when I saw that friendly girlish handwriting."

"What was supposed to be my present, my get-Sadie-out-of-her-slump gift rapidly turned into a curse. You wrecked everything. My entire year."

"My last year of high school was supposed to be all about the good times, not me worrying about my father's affair with his travel rep. and his silent suggestion to keep it a secret from my mother. Because when you said nothing to either of us except more lies to me as if I were imagining things and nothing at all to her, that's exactly what you did."

**"Without even saying the words."**

"How could you bring me to that woman's office and then pretend like everything was great when in reality all it was, was just a lie? How could you cheat on Mom and expect me to lie about it and keep quiet about your secret?"

"**A lie by omission is still a lie Dad," she said in a hard tone.**

"How could you let that go on for months? How could you keep on seeing her even after I found out?"

Nearly everything she felt tumbled and rushed out of her like a waterfall, not peacefully like you'd assume you'd see at first sight but with hints of rage, anger, power and intensity that was just beneath an attractive surface.

She kept on asking and asking, bombarding her father with the truly tough questions that she'd wondered about for months and had been dealing with for the most part on her own.

She'd gone over and over them by herself, tossing the thoughts into the air like a juggler would balls of frustration transformed into devilish angst.

In her silent months of inner turmoil and anger she'd never gotten her answers and now this was her chance.

She didn't have to look down to what she written to express how she felt. She remembered it nearly word for word, each sentiment coming straight from the heart, straight from the emotional hell she'd been living in.

This was the opening for all the simple questions that didn't have easy explanations. They _should_ have had easy explanations though.

The actions that _should_ have been taken seemed effortless and obvious.

Easy almost. Two steps away from simple.

Everything that should have been done seemed right. So why didn't he _do_ them? Why did he let her and the rest of her family down continually?

Why was it that the people who loved you ended up hurting you the most?

Because they could?

Because they had the key to that part of your heart?

And the ability to twist what was inside and make it bleed?

The face of her mild mannered father, who was easy going and loved music nearly as much as he did his daughters, seemed to change into something she didn't easily recognize over the past few months. For all her sassy actions, fierce expressions combined with equally biting accusations, bold statements and the conflicting emotions that she felt, he was still her father and that was a fact she couldn't easily forget.

She kept on asking and asking but didn't give him a chance to answer.

Maybe that was the point.

**To just be heard.**

And she was heard as her questions tripped over themselves like the rambunctious children she and her younger sister _used_ to be.

She was heard loud and clear, as the heated words kept sliding down one after another like cool rain falling from the sky or a waterfall cascading down jagged rocks.

But there wasn't anything peaceful about it.

"Or do you really expect me to believe that the one night Jude saw you with her  
**In Our House **  
was the first time you'd seen her since that day?"


	3. Victoria Harrison

Essence of Her

By

Alyson Grant

**Victoria Harrison**

"I don't really know what to say here."

She cleared her throat and coughed.  
Met two fearful and anxious brown eyes and looked away.  
Then looked back down to she'd written and fiddled her fingers nervously.

And finally began again, continuing in a somewhat strained and shaky voice.

"You've become someone I can't trust."

"We had so many years of marriage, so many good times, so many experiences, so many things shared, two daughters and now _this_."

She lifted her eyes from the sheet she was holding and met her husband's somber expression.

"Our relationship wasn't perfect but we were working towards fixing that. Or did you somehow think that having an affair would _somehow_ help the situation?

"I think not," she said as her tone grew even more tense, clipped and professional.

"All you did was hurt it further and abuse my trust."

"You abused it the second you took it too far. The very _second_ flirtations began, the very _second _you couldn't look me in the eye and tell me honestly where you'd been however many minutes before…"

"**How could you fuck her and then come home and make love to me?"**

Her daughters flinched at her graphic words. She didn't notice.  
Couldn't, as the tears began to rush to her eyes.  
She tried in vain to hold them back but found that she couldn't.

"Do you even know the difference? Can you even tell?"

"Our ring," she asked. "What did that mean to you? Did you casually slip it off each time you saw her? Did you pretend that you weren't married? _Could_ you?

Where there had once been a hint of desperation residing in her voice in the beginning, now all that remained were the underlying emotions that lay beneath her words as they came out in a fast rushed blur of anger. Bitterness, anger, hurt and resentment dipped and flowed throughout her thoughts. Those four emotions and a mixture of more infiltrated her mind, were evident in her expression, and came out in her voice

When their eyes made a tense connection the room seemed to dissolve and the people around them disappear.

For her, it felt like it was just the two of them.

For her, in that moment the only people in that room were a woman and her husband and it was painful to know that she would have preferred to be anywhere else.

"Or were two children and a wife too much of a reminder?"

She'd started out in a conversational tone that was both a mockery and a lie but ended with a harsh snap.

"Did you have _fun_ slipping into the role of both adulterer and hurter? Because each time you thought of her, called her, saw her, slept with her…" Her voice shook with hurt and pain as she angrily brushed away a stray tear that had fallen onto her cheek. "Each time there was even the _essence_ of her, you were cheating."

"**And I can't forgive you."**


	4. Stuart Harrison

Essence of Her

by

Alyson Grant

**Stuart Harrison**

"I can't even begin to explain my actions. I'm not even sure to begin. I don't really know why I did what I did. It started out as something innocent and then led to so much more. But you have to know that I never meant to hurt you."

"_Any_ of you," He added hastily with misery tingeing the crevices of his voice and painting it black.

"You _mean_ you never meant for us to find out," a sullen voice spat out bitterly.

Hurt was immediately etched in the face of a father as he looked into that of his youngest.

Intensity shaded and colored her stormy blue eyes as she looked back,  
while her very stance and set of face seemed to say,

**I know what I said.  
I meant what I said.  
And I'm not taking back what I said.**

"_Please_." A soft voice admonished. "You have to let him speak. You must. Uninterrupted if at all possible. It's the _only_ way we can begin to make some progress."

The melodic yet stern tone of those words broke into the sudden silence that filled the room like a sharp chisel connecting with hard rock. Unlike the relief of rock becoming debris, breaking and shattering into dozens of tiny pieces however, the room was still filled with an energy that was thick and palpable like a city's smog or a sea ports early morning mist and fog.

Angry eyes flashed the words with thinly veiled hostility: _I don't have to do anything._

"I don't know exactly what was missing that I was trying to fix in all the wrong ways. In all the wrong places… but I'm sorry. It's complicated. It's very complicated."

He paused as a rude noise filled the quiet, silent room.

"Sometimes you do what's wrong because it seems like it's easier to do then what's right. And even though you know it's wrong you try and delude yourself into thinking that it's okay even though deep down you know that it's not."

"Jude, I'm sorry I pulled you into this. I'm sorry you find it difficult to respect me and feel that you can't trust me anymore. That I let you down... I can only hope that someday that can change. That _someday_ you won't be as upset as you are right now and can work in your own way towards forgiving me."

"Sadie, I'm so sorry for burdening you with this and for not doing the right thing right away. I'm sorry for making your year so much more stressful then it could have been. I'm sorry for putting you in this position, a child caught within an adult problem when it wasn't rightfully yours to deal with from the start."

"You seem so strong but really you are just _so_ fragile on the inside and I…"

He broke off with a shake of his head that was both weary and sad and when he continued there was a telltale hitch and waver in his voice.

"I helped break you. Helped take away some of your innocence and I'm not sure if you can ever get it back."

**"Both of you..."**

"Victoria, I'm so sorry for breaking our vows and hurting you. I'm sorry for everything. And know that my everything isn't enough. Not now. Not anymore."

She looked down to the pale area on her finger where her wedding ring used to be. The brilliant symbol that on many occasions hadn't been taken off for months at a time.

Now…it was gone.

Tucked away in a box of painful memories.

"Oh please Dad! What does it matter?" Exasperated words tinged with hurt rushed out.

"Sadie, do you have something to say?" The round woman with friendly pink cheeks and short grey hair directed this question towards her as she tapped her pen along the raised edge of her seat.

"He's not sorry. He's not sorry for _any_ of this! He can't be." She burst out with angry emotion and then viciously accused, "He's just trying to make himself feel less guilty. Well, I don't buy it and you all shouldn't either."

"Don't you all think it's a bit too late? I mean, you've tried therapy before and now… now, well what's the point?"

Tears ran down her cheeks as she struggled out of her chair and made her way toward the door.

"Sadie, honey, wait!" Her father called out frantically, already beginning to rise from his seat while her mother stayed in hers and just looked at the blank spot on her finger stoically.

Her blond hair whipped over her shoulder and angrily slapped the air as she turned back to her father and silently told rather then asked, just as he'd silently asked her the unthinkable for many months…

_**To just let her go.** _

Jude was left behind in the wake looking after her sister.

Unhappiness was etched in her face as she sighed and blinked back tears. She looked at the woman dressed in muted shades of sage and said calmly, "She's right. This means nothing."

Panic stricken, her father rushed and hurried to say,

"It does mean something Jude. We're trying to-"

"It doesn't mean anything," She interrupted softly as she said the words more to herself then to anyone else. "What does it mean? What does it matter?"

"They're getting a divorce."

A tense hand crumpled a messy tear stained page of words

and sad eyes with bright unshed tears

watched as the lined page fell slowly to the ground.

Unsteady feet met the floor and the click and tap of black boots as they traveled to the door resonated throughout the small room and on its hardwood surface. The tempo didn't stop or change even after the name of the girl they belonged to was called.  
In fact, if anything they just moved faster…

Then three were left sitting in the small room shrouded in shadows.

Psychologist. Adulterous husband. And soon to be ex wife.

* * *

**  
Essence of Her**

**Author's Note**

A.G- So, this was a short story separated into four chapters and points of view. And now it's over.

This story has got to be one the most edited I've ever done. Before Sadie's scene was much shorter…

Everything was just different at first.

Why did I write it? I don't know. It's not the typical Tommy and Jude big romance story that everyone (including me) seems to love but it's a topic that definitely was part of the show.

And it all began with one line "You might think that what you did has nothing to do with me but father it has everything to do with me." At least I think that's where it all started. Maybe the line that began it all was, "I'm not the disappointment here. You are."

And you have to wonder given the whole situation…how does everyone react?

You have the father who let down himself, his wife, and his daughters.

You have the older sister who used to have it all who was dealing with everything alone for the longest.

You have the younger sister who seemed to put her father on a pedestal or at least her older sister thought she did and then bam! Problem. Daddy isn't perfect.

And then you have the mother who has to deal with the fact that her husband cheated on her and everything she feels…

Thank you for the reviews. You guys are really sweet.

People really seemed to like Sadie's point of view which is interesting. Thank you.

And for everyone who's been reading and not reviewing (I've got the stats. I see you baby) I hope you liked it too even though I don't know your opinion.

Try reviewing next time. : )

So now that this story is over I do have a question for you.

At the end with the kind of poetry format 'A tense hand…' whose hand do you think that is? I know who I meant for it to be but the way I wrote it I think it can be interpreted as two people so I'm curious…

And was 'sad eyes' as obvious as I think it is or could that also be someone else? I guess it really is all about individual interpretation.

I guess I'll post the answer to that in my bio or in my next story. Later people.

I'm glad you liked reading this.


End file.
